27 August 2007

I just took this quiz to find out my crayon colour! Who'd have thought it!

You Are a Green Crayon

Your world is colored in harmonious, peaceful, natural colors.While some may associate green with money, you are one of the least materialistic people around.Comfort is important to you. You like to feel as relaxed as possible - and you try to make others feel at ease.You're very happy with who you are, and it certainly shows!

Your color wheel opposite is red. Every time you feel grounded, a red person does their best to shake you.

Time to get back into the EDM weekly challenge habit after being away so much over the past month or so. This is a spray bottle, which I use to wet my paints and keep the paper wet when I'm working in watercolour. This is done with a Rotring art pen and Pentel water brush.

23 August 2007

We had a great time in New York, getting there two days before the second of my conferences started. We took the Circle Line tour around Manhattan, which was excellent. It's amazing how much of the Upper West Side looks from the river to be rolling, tree-covered hills! We also went up the Empire State Building, went to see a Broadway show, and generally acted the typical tourists! The girls were very excited by the shops, especially given the very favourable exchange rate at the moment. And I enjoyed a trip to Pearl's on Canal Street. Sketching time was again very limited, but here are a couple from an afternoon in Central Park.

21 August 2007

I'm finally back in Oxford and have cleared the backlog of work sufficiently to have a moment to scan some sketches. We had a great trip. I was last in Philadelphia about 25 years ago, and was surprised to see that it now has skyscrapers. When I was there, you weren't allowed to build higher than the statue of Penn on City Hall. I think it's a shame (and apparently some think it has resulted in a curse on the city's baseball team, though it didn't seem to hurt them on the night we went to see them play!). But there were a lot of familiar things too, like Reading Terminal Market, Society Hill, and Penn's Landing. Of course the two highlights are Independence National Historical Park, home of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, and the Art Museum. At the latter I couldn't resist running up the steps, Rocky-style! Even though it was close to 100 degrees!!

The collection at the latter is really outstanding. We didn't have time to do it justice, really, but concentrated on 18th and 20th century European works. One of my favourites is the painting of the Houses of Parliament burning by Turner.

Unfortunately, it was a working trip really, so there wasn't much time for art. But I did manage to do a couple of quick sketches, of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.

01 August 2007

I'm off on my travels again tomorrow, this time slightly further from home. I'm going to be in Philadelphia and New York City until 15th August. Unfortunately, this is mostly a working trip, but I should get a few days of down time to roam around with my sketch book. See you all when I get back!